Letter to authorities reveals the anguish that haunted a family as murder probe dragged months before charge was filed

On a warm summer day two weeks ago, Tonisia Reid took a train downtown while armed with a letter she'd been up all night writing.

It had been nine months since her cousin Linda Morgan was found strangled, beaten, bound and wrapped in a blanket inside a South Side garbage bin.

And for months Reid and her family had been waiting for an answer.

Who killed Morgan, a mother who despite an on-and-off battle with drugs had worked hard her entire life and always kept close to her family?

Reid feared the investigation was off-track, that the man police had found through a DNA sample would not be charged. And she needed to see someone about it.

"My cousin, Linda Morgan, was the victim of a violent homicide," the letter to the Cook County state's attorney's office reads. "She has four children who have been grieving her brutal murder along with our entire family."

On Thursday, Reid's family got another call from the detectives.

Henry Sandifer, 51, had been charged with murdering Morgan after forensic evidence linked him to the crime scene.

Morgan had moved to Chicago from St. Louis about 25 years ago and lived at 109th Street and Parnell Avenue. She had four children. She volunteered at a grade school and was hired there to do janitorial work, Reid said. At the time of her death, she was working at a day-care center.

Morgan, 45, also struggled with drugs, Reid said.

She would disappear occasionally on weekends, her cousin said. Investigators and the family suspect she was using drugs the weekend before her body was found on Oct. 14, 2008, in an alley in the 11000 block of Normal Avenue. Morgan had been sexually assaulted, police said.

When Morgan did not come home after the weekend, her family grew concerned. By Tuesday, they had prepared fliers about her disappearance.

But before Reid could hang any, the family had received a call about the body in the garbage can.

"We did not want to think the worst, but we just felt it was her because there was no other explanation," Reid said. "Even though we wanted her to be safe, it was a relief to find out that it was her because we didn't want her somewhere suffering."

Reid thought the case would be solved quickly.

Instead, the family spent months worrying, hanging on updates and assurances from detectives assigned to the case that one day someone would stand trial for this.

While the family was waiting, DNA evidence from the scene was being worked up at the state crime lab. By May, detectives were told the evidence matched Sandifer, whose DNA was in the national database because of his criminal record.

About two weeks ago, the detectives told Reid they believed they had caught her cousin's killer, news that elated her. The family expected charges immediately.

But within 24 hours came the news that kept Reid up all night. There were no charges. Reid was distraught. She feared her cousin's occasional drug use was clouding the issue for the Cook County state's attorney's office.

So, overnight, she wrote her letter to the office's Felony Review Unit, writing all about her cousin and what a burden the family has carried since her death.

She took the letter to the state's attorney's offices downtown, but she was told she needed to go to the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue. She headed there the next day.

"I told [the Felony Review Unit] I have been entrusted to oversee all of this," Reid said. "I wanted to make sure I didn't have any regrets, [that] I did the footwork and I did everything in my power."

Once there, Reid was told that prosecutors wanted to make the case as solid as possible, she said. Sandifer also was locked up on an unrelated charge, she was told, and not likely to go anywhere.

A spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office confirmed the conversation.

"The wheels of justice, they do sometimes move slowly," said Sally Daly, the spokeswoman. "That can be frustrating for us [and] families. But they do move with purpose.

"We've now charged an offender with a very brutal and very heinous murder. And we have every confidence we have charged the correct individual."

Last week, more DNA evidence put Sandifer at the scene. Charges were approved a day later.

Reid, who was on a family vacation when news of the charges came, said she is happy she followed through for her cousin.

"I wanted to make sure that it was clear that ... she was a person and that people loved her," Reid said.